


Crossroads

by glim



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Era, Community: summerpornathon, M/M, Magic, Secrets, Summer Pornathon 2015, Team Gluttony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 17:35:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4530924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"What did you pray for? At the crossroads?"</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossroads

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Summer Pornathon 2015 Challenge #1: Cross.

"You stopped. Even when I told you not to," Arthur says without looking up from the map spread out in front of him. He knows Merlin by his footsteps, by the rise and fall of his breath. "At the crossroads."

Merlin shuffles his feet, takes a few steps closer, hesitates, then comes to stand at the table with Arthur. His index finger traces a line from Camelot to where they are now: the last way station on the road that cuts through the south of the kingdom. 

"I saw it, the scrap of red cloth, not yet faded by the sun or rain. Tied up with the rest of the trinkets." They'd shivered in the wind and made an unsettling sound, bits of metal, wood, and cloth, offerings left to the old Roman spirits said to guard the crossroads. "The Romans abandoned this land long ago."

"I know. But I couldn't not stop. Didn't you feel it?" Merlin fingertips leave the map to touch Arthur's hand. "It's only a scrap of cloth. It could be yours or mine, that's why I left it." 

Arthur shakes his head, but he's lying and, worse, Merlin knows he's lying. His horse had balked and Arthur's heart had stuttered, then settled only when he saw the cloth that Merlin had left. "You're being superstitious. And overprotective," he adds when Merlin rests his hand atop Arthur's. 

"That's pretty much impossible, given how much you don't look after yourself." 

Arthur keeps his eyes down, shifts his hand slightly so it fits more neatly beneath Merlin's. It fits perfectly, though, and Merlin's hand is slim and strong, callused in different places than Arthur's. 

"What did you pray for? At the crossroads?"

"For our journey. For your safety. For-for you," Merlin says, when Arthur finally looks up at him.

Merlin's hand fits perfectly against his own, and Arthur knows that Merlin's body would, too. That his chest would curve against Arthur's back and his arms around Arthur's waist with no effort at all, just the warm press of skin to skin and Merlin's body wrapped around his. 

What is imperfect, though, and what flutters in Arthur's chest, unsettling him, is that the feeling that he gets around Merlin sometimes is the same he felt at the crossroads. An uncanny feeling of knowledge that springs more from sense than understanding. 

"If anyone else had seen it, they would know about you." Arthur will not speak of magic because Merlin will not speak of it, but he cannot let the matter rest here. He takes Merlin's hand in his own, bring the palm to his mouth, and presses a kiss to the center. 

Merlin doesn't pull his hand away, but he doesn't argue, either, and perhaps he, like Arthur, cannot cross more than one line tonight. He turns his hand against Arthur's face, fingers brushing Arthur's cheek and tracing his jawline as he'd traced the line on the map: careful, deliberate. 

He walks around the table before Arthur and rests his hands on Arthur's shoulders, brushes his lips against Arthur's before Arthur can decide to kiss him again. "I will protect you in any way I am able."

Merlin can afford to be careful with him: he knows Arthur's heart, and he can read Arthur's longing and desire inside it. He keeps himself closed and quiet, keeps something unspoken between them. 

Arthur cannot bear it, neither the gentle care that Merlin offers nor the uncanny silence that settles between them. He cannot turn away, either, however, and when Merlin kisses him once more, he can hear the rustle of branches and the shivering of the trinkets. 

They are one in the same: Merlin, and the magic that skirts the corners of Albion. 

And there is something inside Arthur, too, that is drawn to both of them, that is part of them both. He sinks himself into the silent kiss that Merlin gives him, parts his lips and lets himself be drawn. Desire shivers through him like the thin spring wind, and then swells, warm and sudden, until he is hard and needy, pressing himself against Merlin with a sigh. 

He knows Merlin by his touch, by his breath and by the slide of his body inside Arthur's; by the fluttering inside his own chest and the perfect knowledge he has now of Merlin's body.


End file.
